From Adam Gerrish…
The clocks going forward signals the beginning of spring, with light evenings for running on the moor ahead, a welcome change for fair weather runners like myself. However for PECO the end of March is still considered firmly in cross country season.
Entering any of the previous 5 PECO races qualifies runners to enter a team of three for the season grand finale, the PECO relays. After an excellent XC season for Ilkley we put together 3 teams for the Bramley Fall Park event.
I had heard that Dan McKeown was assembling an avengers style elite vets team of Steve Gott and Danny Thompson. So it was down to me to organise a “youth” team of Mike AC and Ed Hobbs to rival them. (Spoiler alert – Ed Hobbs did a lot of heavy lifting in both carrying our team, and representing the youth element).
The third Ilkley contingent ‘The Old Menstonians’ was made up of Roar, David S and Matthew S.
Pre-race Ed had been briefed to remember his race bib and overtake as many people as possible. He managed one out of two – as he still forgot his race number! However once we saw Steve and Danny practising their baton change overs we knew that they meant business, and that despite our star runner it wouldn’t be easy.
The course consisted of 2.3 miles of a fair undulating 1.5 lap course in boggy conditions. Which actually felt like real XC for once after an unusually dry season.
The first leg runners set out with Steve Gott representing ‘No (Cross) Country for Old Men’ vs myself for ‘Ilkley Youth’. Steve finished leg 1 in third place, handing over to Danny in an excellent position (with a seamless well practised baton changeover). I trailed in 68 seconds behind Steve, giving Mike AC a bit of work to do to try and catch Danny T.
An excellent leg by Danny T left the Ilkley Vets in 2nd place at the change over point, and Mike AC closed the deficit by 9 seconds and pulled Ilkley Youth up to 5th place (despite running in his famed Alphaflys on a boggy slippery course).
The final show down was left to Dan Mckeown to try and bring home the glory for Ilkley, and narrowly missed out at the end by 4 seconds to bring home second place. Ed Hobbs was the final anchor for the Youth team and a valiant effort and the fastest leg of the day overall meant that despite a leisurely start we ended up finishing in 3rd place.
This meant that two of the podium spots ended up going to Ilkley teams, and our third team finished 15th overall (3rd Vets team) cementing our position as one of the top clubs around. A good day out all round.